New Allies, Diminished Expectations for Commuter Rail

Thursday, September 20, 2007

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Normally restrained, reticent, and cautious to a fault, Santa Barbara City Councilmember Roger Horton was uncharacteristically jubilant about the prospects for commuter rail after last Friday’s meeting with his counterparts in Ventura County. “It was kind of a miracle,” Horton gushed. At first, the action taken by the Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) seemed exceedingly modest. The VCTC board voted to join with the Santa Barbara City Council and the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) in sending a letter to Amtrak and Caltrans asking that Amtrak change the schedule of its Pacific Surf Liner to accommodate the needs of the 18,000-20,000 people who commute between Ventura homes and Santa Barbara jobs.

But Horton was most struck by the newfound hospitality with which he and his fellow commuter rail advocates were received. “It was an open door where before it had been locked shut,” he said. At a 2006 meeting, for example, VCTC Executive Director Ginger Gherardi coolly dissed the prospect of commuter rail, saying the soonest her agency might consider the matter would be 2040. Gherardi and her board made no secret their disdain for Santa Barbara’s grand plans for hauling passengers to and fro three times a day. But it was Gherardi herself who called Horton to invite him to present his revised plans for commuter rail at last week’s meeting.

Horton attributed this change to the fact that Gherardi is retiring and that her board has come to understand they have a constituency of 20,000 commuters to serve. Many of these will find themselves hopelessly stuck in construction-induced gridlock during the eight years of freeway improvements slated to begin next year; Horton has argued that commuter rail can offset some of this congestion.

But Horton also acknowledged that he and many commuter rail advocates were forced to drastically reduce the scope of their dreams in the wake of last November’s crushing defeat of Measure D, the three-quarter percent sales tax surcharge that would have provided $140 million for commuter rail in addition to funds for freeway widening. In the new version of Measure D-a half-cent sales tax surcharge-to go before voters this November, only $15 million has been earmarked for commuter rail. “What they saw from us before was, ‘It’s either the whole banana or no banana at all,’” Horton said.

Some commuter rail advocates like Dennis Story of Coastal Rail Now have expressed concern that the elected officials serving on SBCAG are too willing to toss commuter rail overboard in hopes of building a political constituency capable of garnering the two-thirds supermajority required to renew Measure D. Unless renewed, Measure D expires in 2010, thus denying the county and its seven cities a critical source of road repair money. And in last year’s election, commuter rail proved exceptionally unpopular with North County voters.

Story maintains that commuter rail needs at least $40 million in Measure D funds, and has expressed skepticism that $15 million is enough to buy much besides more consultants’ studies. Horton and others contend the $15 million could be effectively used to leverage matching state and federal funds. That, they say, could be sufficient to pay for a pilot commuter rail project.

Jim Kemp, executive director of SBCAG, said if Amtrak shifted the Surf Liner schedules to accommodate working people-currently it arrives in Santa Barbara too late and leaves too early-then perhaps the $15 million could be used to subsidize the price of tickets to encourage ridership. Currently, a round-trip from Santa Barbara to Ventura runs $14. “We’d finally find out what works and what doesn’t,” Kemp said. In the meantime, Kemp said he also was struck by Ventura’s willingness to work with Santa Barbara County on commuter rail. “You can’t overstate the importance of it,” he said. “It’s a first.”

Comments

Major CORRECTION: Measure D is on the November ballot in 2008, not "before voters this November".

While the new cooperation by Ventura County Transportation Commission is a critical new achievement, this article here misses the true status about the proposed $15 million in the proposed budget for the new Measure D expenditure plan.

That figure is the amount proposed by SBCAG staff as their first figure published for public review; that figure is not neccessarily the final answer as an "earmark" as noted in this news article, unless the public process already is done and no one has been told.

The rest of the proposed budget currently allocates about 80% to local agencies for spending that so far has no exact projects or programs identified. This has generated severe acid reflux with many if not most of the 20 public stakeholder groups that SBCAG invited to advise on the future Measure D budget.

The basic problem is that this nearly 80% budget share by the cities and county has not been disclosed in any detail to know if more funds would or would not be available for commuter rail in addition to the proposed figure of $15 million, an amount that likely will not get the job done, especially if future federal grants are so uncertain.

As the local Public Works departments readily describe, the problem is compounded because such local jurisdictions have nearly an infinite need for revenue during the next few decades to support roads, bridges, and other transportation projects. Thus, 100% of the Measure D funds probably would not be enough in the long term.

Adjusting the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner schedule may seem like an quick answer to establish practical commuter rail at times of the day when local commuters actually commute, but those same number of trains also need to be elsewhere from San Diego to San Luis Obispo; they cannot all be held in reserve for the run between Oxnard and Goleta during the primetime commuter hours.

Therefore, this is why sustainable transportation advocates and a growing coalition to promote a fair distribution of Measure D funds are now asking SBCAG to reveal what most of the Measure D budget really is for. After 3 long monthly meetings since last June with that requested many times, staff still have not responded to that request, which has been made yet again in writing.

Many of us involved really hope the Independent and Daily Sound can cover these SBCAG monthly meetings about the proposed Measure D spending plan, as it forms instead of after it is all but a done deal. The stakeholders group was formed specifically, SBCAG staff said, to generate support for the plan so the stakeholders then can advocate for YES vote on Measure D.

If the voters in November 2008 really do not have any assurrance about what their tax money really will be spent on, including commuter rail, then they will be inclined to vote NO on Measure D. Then we all lose in that train wreck.